Best Animated Short - 2024: The Shortlist

It's that time of year again, huh? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the shortlist for selected categories on December 17, and we have a new list of 15 titles that still have a chance to receive the coveted honor of being named the Best Animated Short of the year at the Oscars. Normally I'd write about these shortlisted films as soon as possible after the shortlist's release, but for the third straight year I had to do some traveling after the shortlist's reveal, and didn't have time to put in the research necessary to write about the films because once again I didn't pay attention to any festivals or anything so I knew very little about the titles. Two years ago I neglected to even write about the shortlist but I figure nowadays I ignore this blog in between awards season so I figure I should write something.

According to the press release there were 88 films that achieved eligibility through festivals or theatrical releases. I don't think the Academy released the full list of films that have been eligible although sites like Cartoon Brew has certainly tried to compile lists of potential competitors, and some lists of eligible films have been leaked. As such, I have no idea what are considered snubs. But taking a look at these titles it does appear that the Academy has continued their recent habit of avoiding populist titles such as Once Upon a Studio last year. But what did make the cut, in the fourth straight year that the Academy has expanded the shortlist to 15? I'm not going to do an in-depth analysis of each of these films because the majority of them are only available as trailers but I do hope I will write enough for a basic understanding of what each film is like.

The 21

Back on February 15, 2015 the Islamic State released a shocking video of the murder by beheading of 21 Christian men, the majority of which belonged to an ethnic Christian group from Egypt, a group known as the Copts. The grisly nature of the attacks shocked the world, but the grace showed by the families of the victims were touching to the evangelical Christian group The Clapham Group as well as American animator Tod Polson, formerly of Cartoon Saloon. They collaborated to create an animated film done in the style akin to Coptic iconography to honor the martyrs that stood firm in the face of certain death. Unfortunately the film doesn't appear to be available in its entirety but the trailer makes it seem incredibly intense.

Trailer

Au Revoir, Mon Monde (Goodbye, My World)

One underrated avenue that is available for young filmmakers to insert themselves immediately into the Oscars race is by winning a Student Academy Award, which has been going on since the 1970s. If I'm not mistaken it used to be that Gold Medalists winners were eligible to be considered for a nomination in one of the short film categories. Some of them make the shortlist, and a few such as 9, Daughter, and An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It even made it into the nominations circle. Au Revoir, Mon Monde is the Gold Medalist from this year, with the winners coming from MoPA, the animation school in France that also produced the filmmaking team behind the Oscar nominated Garden Party (which qualified via festivals and not the Student Academy Award). As such because it was a student film, the film is available online.

Watch It Here!

A Bear Named Wojtek

Bears have gotten somewhat of a bad rap throughout history for their ferocious nature. I recently read that the precursor word for "bear" wasn't even the official terminology for the animal, but ancient proto-Germanic tribes were so fearful of saying the creature's name that they picked a word meaning "wild animal" to refer to it. However, bears can also be important allies, and nowhere is this more evident than during World War II. A Polish army unit adopted an orphaned brown bear in Iran who later grew up to become a vital part of the team, even helping out during the Battle of Monte Cassino. After the war, the bear named Wojtek spent the remainders of his days in Scotland, where his story caught the attention of a Scottish animator named Iain Gardner. He was inspired to collaborate with a Polish film company to create A Bear Named Wojtek.

Trailer

Beautiful Men

I am in a Discord server where we have this game called "Favorite Things" where members suggest things that correspond to a certain category that other members nominate with emojis, and the three or four items with the most emoji support go on to a final vote. We had a recent category about "Favorite Bald Man" and that got me to thinking of how prevalent it actually is and how it might affect an individual's ego. There are certain methods in treating baldness, one such is the transplant of hair follicles, also known as hair plugs. It is this such procedure that inspired Belgian animator Nicolas Keppens to create his surrealistic stop-motion animated short Beautiful Men. That's unfortunately all that I know about this because all we have is the trailer which is in some European language and isn't even subtitled.

Trailer

Beurk! (Yuck!)

Childhood is a time of exploration, as youngsters explore themselves and the world around them, particularly in their relationship to others as they try to move up Erik Erikson's ladder of psychosocial development. Of course their explorations can frequently them into some pretty shocking territory, such as the act of kissing. It seems that there is a pretty universal simultaneous reaction of revulsion and curiosity when a child first experiences the concept of a kiss, and it is this seemingly paradoxical reaction that is the subject of Loïc Espuche's short film Beurk! (which is just the French word for "Yuck".) The film's poster shows the title in bright hot pink juxtaposed with two of the characters preparing to kiss which represents the duality of emotions much better than the trailer does.

Trailer

Bottle George

Addiction is a mental illness that can greatly affect the lives of those suffering from it as well as those around them. One can be addicted to a variety of items or actions, from sex to gambling, but the most frequent source of addiction is sadly with drugs and other psychoactive substances, including alcohol. It is the topic of alcohol addiction and its effects on others that is the subject of the latest film by Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi, the Japanese-born animator that was previously nominated in this category with The Dam Keeper. This is a stop motion film that appears to be about a little girl that finds a creature living in a bottle as she deals with her father's alcohol addiction. At least that's what I seem to gather from the film's trailer. 

Trailer

In the Shadow of the Cypress

Another mental illness that frequently affects the lives of those suffering from it as well as those around them is post-traumatic stress disorder, the emotional scarring that occurs that after a traumatic event. It leaves its mark with intrusive memories and flashbacks to the event as well as a myriad of other psychologic conditions such as anxiety or depression. It is frequently found in environments affected by war, and it was one of the themes that inspired Iranian filmmakers Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani to create their short film In the Shadow of the Cypress. This is one of the few short films that is available online in its entirety, so it would be difficult for me to not talk about any aspects of it in a review, which would only happen if it gets a nomination, but you can watch it for yourself!

Watch It Here!

Magic Candies (Alsatang)

Imagination is an important aspect of a child's growth and development as they try to make sense of the world around us. It is this rich imaginary world that presumably inspired Korean animator and children's book author Hee-na Baek to write her celebrated picture book Magic Candies, which was eventually adopted into an animated short film from the legendary Japanese animation studio Toei, with longtime Dragonball Z director Daisuke Nishio at the helm. I don't have much else to say about this film, but it seems that Hee-na Baek is a winner of the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award celebrating contributions to children's literature. Apparently another former winner of the award is Shaun Tan, who is also an Oscar winner in this category for The Lost Thing.

Trailer

Maybe Elephants

Torill Kove is certainly one of the more celebrated artists within this category, as the Norwegian-born animator working in Canada has received three nominations for Best Animated Short dating back to 1999's My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts and winning in 2006 for The Danish Poet. Her deceptively simple character designs and homely narratives generally leave quite an impression on viewers. However, she has not received a nomination since the semi-autobiographical Me and My Moulton ten years ago. She is hoping for a return to the winner's circle with Maybe Elephants, another film reaching back to her own past when her family moved to Kenya with shocking and far-reaching effects. It is co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada, but not yet fully available.

Trailer

Me

Another longtime veteran of the Best Animated Short category is the American animator Don Hertzfeldt. He doesn't quite have as much success as Torill Kove, having been nominated only twice (for Rejected in 2000 and World of Tomorrow in 2015), but his films which have an even more deceptively simple style and frequently deal with existential questions, have struck a chord with viewers. His latest film is Me, which he describes as being an "experimental musical" where he had lost the rights to the music he had planned on using. Is it enough to bring him the long-awaited Oscar? I wouldn't know. The film is available in its entirety on Vimeo On Demand, but only for rent and I'm not sure if I'm going to spend the money on that just yet, since Hertzfeldt has made the shortlist twice for the films that make up the It's Such a Beautiful Day film, but failed to get a nomination. 

Trailer

Origami

If I'm not mistaken, while film students can achieve Oscar eligibility through winning Student Academy Awards, it used to be that only film that receive a Gold Medal that gain Oscar eligibility. However, the rules this years state that any medalist winner can qualify. Maybe it was always like this, but I don't remember seeing a Silver Medalist film that eventually made it into the shortlists that I've been following. However, Origami is the first film that I've found that only won a Silver Medal at the Student Academy Awards that made it onto the shortlist. It was made by Kei Kanamori in the Digital Hollywood University in Tokyo and was inspired by the famed Japanese art style of paper folding, known as Origami. It's something in which I am terrible, but the film is available on YouTube, so you can marvel at it.

Watch It Here

Percebes

The Pedunculata pollicipes is a type of shellfish that is known is some parts of the world as goose barnacles. However, in the countries of Spain and Portugal the animal plays a much more important role as a delicacy known as Percebes. The relationship between the barnacles and the Algarve people of southern Portugal was fascinating to that of the Portuguese filmmaking duo of Laura Gonçalves and Alexandra Ramires, leading them to create the animated documentary Percebes. Gonçalves had made the shortlist once before in 2022 with her film The Gatbage Man (although that was the year I neglected to write about the shortlisted films.) Can she take the next step and receive a nomination? I wouldn't know, so enjoy the trailer instead.

Trailer

Un Trou Dans la Poitrine (A Crab in the Pool)

Grief is a powerful emotion that can lead to different responses, but either way we mourn the loss of people or things close to us. It is a topic covered by multiple films animated or not, and one of the more interesting ones is the French Canadian film Un Trou Dans la Poitrine by the animators Jean-Sebastian Hamel and Alexandra Moyette. (I initially thought this was French since the characters speak French and so many of the films on this year's shortlist are from France. However, the former home of the Montreal Expos Stade Olympique makes an appearance which confirmed that this film is Canadian in nature.) This is one of the few films that is readily available online, so I won't say all that I have to say about this. Maybe if it gets a nomination I can share it in my full review.

Watch It Here

Wander to Wonder

The world of children's entertainment television is an often perilous realm where shows are often chewed up and spit out if they don't achieve a certain level of viewership or popularity. In real life these shows are produced by actual individuals performing their actual day jobs. However, the film Wander to Wonder by Dutch filmmaker Nina Gantz takes the idea of short film production into bizarre territories, imagining a world where the actors are little people that are involved in the production and they are cared for by a kindly studio head. However, when the studio head passes away the three are left to fend for themselves. It's certainly a bizarre concept and one that I should be able to watch especially as this film is available on Vimeo on Demand for rental or purchasing. I just haven't done it yet. The trailer is free at least.

Trailer

The Wild-Tempered Clavier

The music of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach is celebrated the world over, and his works have inspired countless other artists in all different forms of media. One of the individuals that he has inspired is the Russian-born German-based animator Anna Samo, who had the idea of making The Wild-Tempered Clavier as a tribute to Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier." However, what makes The Wild-Tempered Clavier unique is its medium. There have been several films made on non-traditional media, such as several that were drawn directly onto film stock or the Oscar nominated The Bigger Picture which was animated directly onto walls. Meanwhile The Wild-Tempered Clavier is looking to be the first nominated animated short film to be animated completely on...toilet paper! No idea how well it actually works but here's the trailer

Trailer

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Welp, here are the 15 shortlisted films. I've only seen four of them which will make it difficult for me to have actual predictions of what will and won't make the cut, especially since I usually can't predict even when I have seen the majority of the shortlisted films. Well the nominations will be announced on January 17, so here's hoping some more of the full films will have found their way online by then.